iHobcct  23rotoning* 


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HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO 
Boston  and  New  York. 


ROBERT    BROWNING 


^^er^oualia 


EDMUND   GOSSE 


BOSTON    AND    NEW   YORK 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

E\)e  Bi&crsitic  ^rcss,  CTamfititigc 

1S90 


Copyright,  iSgo, 
By  HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

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Of?  SANTA  BAICoAiU  COr i     ■     .  J'-^ 


PREFACE 

It  would  not  have  occurred  to  me 
that  it  was  worth  while  to  give  a  lasting 
form  to  the  notes  which  are  here  re- 
printed. But  I  am  assured  by  those 
who  are  pecidiarly  well  fitted  to  know 
what  is  required  by  the  readers  of 
Browning  that  there  is  constant  inquiry 
for  the  number  of  The  Century  Maga- 
zine (December,  1881)  in  which  they 
appeared,  and  I  am  bound  to  confess 
that  I  am  frequently  written  to  by 
strangers  who  ask  me  to  tell  them  where 
they  can  meet  with  the  remarks  in  ques- 
tion. I  have  been,  in  consequence,  re- 
quested by  the  poet's  American  pub- 
lishers to  allow  the  appended  reprint  to 
be  made  ;  and  the  fact  is  that  there  is  so 


4  PREFACE 

much  of  it  which  is  Mr.  Browning's,  and 
so  little  which  is  mine,  that  I  have  felt 
it  would  be  mock-modesty  to  refuse  my 
consent.  "  The  Early  Career  of  Rob- 
ert Browning  "  was  inspired  and  partly 
dictated,  was  revised  and  was  approved 
of,  by  himself.  It  is  here  put  forth, 
with  great  diffidence,  not  as  having  any 
final  importance,  but  as  a  contribution 
towards  that  biography  of  the  great 
poet  which  must  one  of  these  days  be 
written.  The  author  of  that  life  will, 
I  cannot  but  hope,  turn  to  these  pages 
with  some  curiosity,  and  perhaps,  until 
his  work  is  accomplished  and  this  small 
star  buried  in  his  sun,  readers  and  lov- 
ers of  Browning  may  be  glad  to  see 
what  events  in  his  early  career  seemed 
notable  to  the  poet  himself.  With  this 
modest  purpose,  and  no  other,  I  have 
permitted  these  personal  notes  to  be  re- 
deemed from  the  pages  of  an  old  maga- 
zine. 


PREFACE  5 

It  has  been  suggested  to  me  that  I 
ought  to  explain  the  circumstances  un- 
der which  these  data  were  collected. 
Ten  years  ago,  it  will  be  recollected, 
although  Mr.  Browning  was  recognized 
as  a  great  poet,  he  had  not  yet  excited 
that  degree  of  personal  curiosity  which 
soon  afterwards  began  to  be  awakened. 
The  facts  of  his  biography  were  put  be- 
fore the  public  in  the  most  rudimentary 
form.  The  year  of  his  birth  was  seldom 
given  correctly ;  the  month  and  day 
had,  I  think,  never  been  made  known. 
At  that  time  I  had  the  happiness  of 
seeing  him  very  frequently ;  for  twelve 
years,  I  may  perhaps  mention,  I  was  his 
close  neighbor.  I  had  several  times 
ventured  to  point  out  to  him  how  valu- 
able would  be  some  authentic  account 
of  his  life,  but  he  had  always  put  the 
suggestion  from  him.  I  had  ceased  to 
hope  that  he  would  ever  break  through 


6  PREFACE 

his  reserve,  when  one  morning  in  Feb- 
ruary, 1881,  he  sent  round  a  note  to  me, 
saying,  "  Come ;  and  I  will  do  what  you 
wish."  I  went,  and  found  him  visibly 
annoyed  by  an  account  of  his  life, 
mainly  fabulous,  which  the  post  had 
brought  him.  He  said,  "  If  you  still 
wish  to  take  down  some  notes  of  my 
life,  I  am  willing  to  give  you  all  the 
help  I  can ;  I  am  tired  of  this  tangle  of 
facts  and  fancies."  It  was  agreed  that 
we  should  dedicate  some  hours  in  the 
morning,  once  a  week,  to  this  delightful 
task,  and  for  about  a  month,  at  stated 
intervals,  for  a  couple  of  hours  at  a 
time,  I  sat  at  his  study  table,  while  he 
perambulated,  and  I  jotted  rapidly 
down  the  notes  of  his  conversation.  At 
his  suggestion,  I  came  each  morning 
provided  with  a  schedule  of  questions, 
one  of  which  I  would  read,  and  then  let 
him  weave  the  embroidery  of  his  answer 


PREFACE  7 

in  whatever  way  he  chose,  until  informa- 
tion languished,  when  I  would  put  an- 
other question  to  him.  At  last  I  had 
collected  a  great  mass  of  facts,  gossip, 
and  opinion,  which  I  put  into  some 
rough  order,  and  submitted  to  him.  He 
marked  for  omission  all  that  his  ma- 
turer  judgment  did  not  wish  to  preserve. 
What  was  rejected  was,  much  of  it,  of 
extreme  interest,  but  he  asked  me  to 
destroy  it  all,  and  of  course  I  loyally 
did  so.  I  then  cast  in  literary  form 
what  he  determined  to  let  pass,  and  the 
article  proceeded  to  America. 

It  appeared  in  the  December  num- 
ber of  The  Century  Magazine^  and  my 
little  record  would  be  incomplete  if  I 
did  not  publish,  among  my  ^neces  justi- 
jicatives^  the  note  which  Mr.  Browning 
left  at  my  door  with  his  own  hand,  as 
soon  as  he  had  read  the  article  in  its 
published  form :  — 


8  PREFACE 

19  Wabwick  Crescent,  W. 

December  4,  1881. 
My  dear  Gosse,  —  What  am  I  to  say, 
or  tiy  to  say  ?  Your  goodness  and  gener- 
osity there  can  be  no  doubt  concerning ;  if 
any  reproach  to  your  judgment  happen  on 
account  of  all  this  partiality  and  praise, 
your  goodness  and  generosity  must  bear  it 
as  well  as  they  can.  I  wish  yourself,  when 
the  years  come,  may  find  such  an  apprecia- 
tor.  You  will  at  least  deserve  such  an  one 
—  I  hope  and  fear  —  better  than  does 
Your  affection  ate  Friend, 

Robert  Browning. 

That  this  volume  may  make  some 
pretense  to  be  a  book,  —  lest,  as  Gray 
said  of  his  poems,  "  tliis  work  should  be 
mistaken  for  the  works  of  a  flea  or  a 
pismire,"  —  I  have  added  to  it  some 
slight  recollections  of  the  personal  char- 
acteristics of  our  illustrious  friend,  con- 
tributed to  The  Neio  JReview  for  Janu- 


PREFACE  9 

ary,  1890.  If  such  notes  as  these  are  to 
have  any  permanent  vahie,  they  must 
be  recorded  before  the  imagination  has 
had  time  to  play  tricks  with  the  mem- 
ory. Such  as  they  are,  I  am  sure  they 
are  faithful  to-day  ;  to-morrow  I  should 
be  sure  of  nothing. 

Ediviund  Gosse. 

March,  1890. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface 3 

The  Early    Career  of    Robert  Brown- 
ing.    1812-1846 13 

Personal  Impressions 75 

Epilogue 93 


THE  EARLY  CAREER  OF 
ROBERT  BROWNING 


THE  EARLY  CAREER  OF  ROB- 
ERT BROWNING. 

1812-1846. 

It  is  not  my  design  in  the  following 
pages  to  attempt  any  exact  review  or 
any  minute  analysis  of  the  writings  of 
one  of  the  most  copious  and  versatile 
of  modern  poets.  The  range  of  Mr. 
Browning's  genius  is  so  wide,  the  tem- 
per of  his  muse  so  Shakesperean  and 
universal,  that  he  will  probably  exhaust 
the  critical  powers  of  a  great  many  stu- 
dents of  literature  before  he  finally 
takes  his  right  place  among  the  chief 
authors  of  modern  Europe.  The  con- 
stellation which  is  still  ascending  our 
poetical  heavens  is  too  much  confused 
as  yet  by  those  mists  of  personal  preju- 


1 6  THE  EARLY  CAREER 

dice  and  meteors  of  temporary  success 
which  always  lurk  about  the  horizon  of 
the  Present  to  enable  us  to  map  the 
stars  in  it  with  certainty.  Many  at- 
tempts, of  course,  have  been  made,  and 
some  with  a  great  measure  of  success. 
Two  such  studies,  among  others,  demand 
recognition  for  their  extent  and  author- 
ity, —  the  volume  on  Mr.  Browning's 
poetry  by  Mr.  John  Nettleship,  since 
known  as  an  animal-painter,  and  the 
elaborate  criticism  printed  in  The  Cenr 
tury  3Iagazine  by  Mr.  E.  C.  Stedman. 
I  shall  not  attempt  to  compete  with 
these  or  any  similar  reviews  ;  my  pur- 
pose is  to  touch  lightly  on  those  early 
volumes  of  Mr.  Browning  which  are 
comparatively  less  known  to  his  admir- 
ers, and  to  enrich  such  bibliographical 
notes  as  I  have  been  able  to  put  together 
with  a  variety  of  personal  anecdotes  and 
historical  facts  which  now  for  the  first 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  17 

time  see  the  light,  and  which  I  have  jot- 
ted down,  from  time  to  time,  from  Mr. 
Browning's  lips,  and  with  his  entire  con- 
sent and  kindly  cooperation.  No  one  is 
more  alive  than  Mr.  Browning,  or,  may 
I  add,  than  I,  to  the  indelicacy  of  the 
efforts  now  only  too  frequently  made  to 
pry  into  the  private  affairs  of  a  man  of 
genius,  to  peep  over  his  shoulder  as  he 
writes  to  his  intimate  friends,  and  to 
follow  him  like  a  detective  through  the 
incidents  of  a  life  which  should  not  be 
less  sacred  from  curiosity  than  the  life 
of  his  butler  or  his  baker.  The  poet 
has  expressed  his  mind  with  extreme 
plainness : 

"A  peep  through  my  window,  if  folks  prefer; 
But,  please  you,  no  foot  over  threshold  of  mine. " 

But  literary  history,  the  most  charm- 
ing of  all  occupations  of  the  human 
mind,  as  Warburton  said,  is  a  very  dif- 
ferent thing  from  personal  history,  and 


1 8  THE  EARLY  CAREER 

there  are  certain  facts  about  the  devel- 
opment of  a  poet's  intellect  and  the  di- 
rection that  it  took,  the  welcomes  that 
it  received  and  the  reverses  that  it  en- 
dured, about  which  curiosity  is  perfectly 
legitimate.  For  those  who  desire  such 
a  peep  through  Mr.  Browning's  win- 
dow as  this,  the  shutters  are  at  last  by 
his  own  courtesy  taken  down. 

Mr.  Robert  Browning  was  born  at 
Camberwell,  a  southern  suburb  of  Lon- 
don, on  the  7th  of  May,  1812.  His 
father,  who  bore  the  same  name  as  him- 
self, and  who  died  in  1866  at  the  age 
of  eighty-four,  was  in  many  ways  a  re- 
markable man.  It  is,  we  must  suppose, 
not  merely  filial  piety  that  makes  his 
son  declare  that  his  father  had  more 
true  poetic  genius  than  he  has.  Of 
course  the  world  at  large  will  answer, 
"  By  their  fruits  shall  ye  know  them," 
and  of  palpable  fruit   in  the  way  of 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  1 9 

published  verse  the  elder  Mr.  Bro\Mi- 
ino-  has  nothing^  to  show.  But  it  seems 
that  his  force  and  fluency  in  the  use  of 
the  heroic  couplet,  the  only  metrical 
form  for  which  he  had  much  taste,  were 
extraordinary ;  and  his  son  speaks  of 
his  moral  vein  as  that  of  a  Pope  born 
out  of  due  time.  For  his  son's  poetic 
gods  he  had,  of  course,  no  fondness, 
and,  from  the  very  first,  the  two  minds 
diverged  upon  every  intellectual  point, 
—  until  the  close  of  the  old  gentleman's 
life,  when  it  is  pathetic  to  hear  that  he 
learned,  as  the  world  was  learning,  to 
appreciate  the  fine  flavor  of  his  son's 
poetry.  He  was  always,  however,  lov- 
ing and  sympathetic,  divining  the  gen- 
uine poetic  impulse  though  blind  to  the 
beauty  of  the  forms  it  took,  and  in  this 
one  case  the  rare  phenomenon  seems  to 
have  appeared  of  a  boy  consciously,  and 
of  set  purpose,  trained   to  be  a  poet. 


20  THE  EARLY  CAREER 

The  only  otlier  instance  that  occurs  to 
me  is  that  of  Jean  Chapelain,  who  was 
set  apart  from  birth  by  his  parents  "  to 
relight  the  torch  of  Malherbe  ; "  the  re- 
sult was  not  nearly  so  happy  as  in  the 
case  of  Mr.  Browning. 

The  latter,  however,  can  hardly  re- 
member a  time  when  his  intention  was 
not  to  be  eminent  in  rhyme,  and  he  be- 
gan to  write  at  least  as  early  as  Cow- 
ley. His  sister  remembers  him,  as  a 
very  little  boy,  walking  round  and  round 
the  dining-room  table,  and  spanning  out 
the  scansion  of  his  verses  with  his  hand 
on  the  smooth  mahogany.  When  he 
was  about  eight  years  old,  this  ambi- 
tious young  person  disdained  the  nar- 
row field  of  poetry,  and,  while  retaining 
that  sceptre,  debated  within  himself,  as 
Dryden  says  Anne  Killegrew  did,  whe- 
ther he  should  invade  and  conquer  the 
province  of  painting  or  that  of  music. 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  21 

It  soon  became  plain  to  him,  however, 
that,  as  he  himself  put  it  thirty-five 
years  later, 

' '  I  shall  never,  in  the  years  remaining, 
Paint  you  pictures,  no,  jQor  carve  you  statues, 
Make  you  music  that  should  all-express  me : 
.  .  .  Verse  alone,  one  life  allows  me," 

and  he  began  writing  with  assiduity. 
It  is  curious  to  reflect  that  aU  the 
giants  were  alive  in  those  days  —  not 
even  Keats  himself  laid  to  sleep  under 
the  Roman  grasses. 

In  1824,  the  year  that  Byron  died, 
the  boy  had  collected  poems  enough  to 
form  a  volume,  and  these  were  taken 
around  to  publisher  after  publisher,  but 
in  vain.  The  first  people  who  saw  the 
nascent  genius  of  tliis  lad  of  twelve 
years  old  were  the  two  Misses  Flower, 
the  younger  afterward  authoress  of 
Vivia  Perpetua^  and  too  sadly  known 
as   Sarah   Flower   Adams.     The   elder 


22  THE  EARLY  CAREER 

Miss  Flower  tlioiiglit  the  poems  so  re- 
markable that  she  copied  them  and 
showed  them  to  the  distinguished  Uni- 
tarian, the  Rev.  William  Johnson  Fox, 
then  already  influential  as  a  radical  pol- 
itician of  the  finer  order.  As  a  matter 
of  course,  Mr.  Fox  was  too  judicious  to 
recommend  the  publication  of  poems  so 
juvenile,  but  he  ventured  to  prophesy 
a  splendid  futui'c  for  the  boy,  and  he 
kept  the  transcripts  in  his  possession. 
To  Mr.  Browning's  great  amusement, 
after  the  death  of  Mr.  Fox,  in  1864,  his 
daughter,  Mrs.  Bridell-Fox,  returned 
the  MS.  to  the  author,  who  read  in  ma- 
turity the  forgotten  verses  of  his  child- 
hood. At  the  time  they  were  written 
he  was  entirely  under  the  influence  of 
Byron,  and  his  verse  was  so  full  and 
melodious  that  Mr.  Fox  confessed,  long 
afterward,  that  he  had  thought  that  his 
snare  would  be  a  too  gorgeous  scale  of 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  23 

language  and  tenuity  of  thought,  con- 
cealed by  metrical  audacity.  But  about 
a  year  after  this,  an  event  revolution- 
ized Robert  Browning's  whole  concep- 
tion of  poetic  art.  There  came  into 
his  hands  a  miserable  pirated  edition  of 
part  of  Shelley's  works ;  the  window 
was  dull,  but  he  looked  through  it  into 
an  enchanted  garden.  He  was  impa- 
tient to  walk  there  himself,  but,  in 
1825,  it  was  by  no  means  easy  to  obtain 
the  books  of  Shelley.  No  bookseller 
that  was  applied  to  knew  the  name,  al- 
though Shelley  had  been  dead  three 
years.  At  last,  inquiry  was  made  of 
the  editor  of  the  Literary  Gazette,  and 
it  was  replied  that  the  books  in  ques- 
tion could  be  obtained  of  C.  &  J.  Oilier, 
of  Vere  street. 

To  Vere  street,  accordingly,  Mrs. 
Browning  proceeded,  and  brought  back 
as  a  present  for  her  son,  not  only  all  the 


24  THE  EARLY  CAREER 

works  of  Shelley,  but  three  volumes 
written  by  a  Mr.  John  Keats,  which 
were  recommended  to  her  as  being  very 
much  in  the  spirit  of  Mr.  Shelley.  A 
bibliophile  of  to-day  is  almost  dazed  in 
thinking  of  the  prize  which  the  uncon- 
scious lady  brought  back  with  her  to 
Camberwell.  There  was  the  Pisa  Ado- 
nais,  in  its  purple  paper  cover ;  there 
was  Epipsychidi07i,  —  in  short,  all  the 
books  she  bought  were  still  in  their 
first  edition,  except  The  Cenei,  which 
professed  to  be  in  the  second.  Poets  of 
our  own  day  need  not  grumble  at  the 
indifference  of  the  public,  when  we  see 
that  within  human  memory  two  of  the 
greatest  writers  of  modern  times,  three 
and  four  years  after  their  decease,  were 
still  utterly  unsalable.  Well,  the  dust 
of  the  dead  Keats  and  Shelley  turned 
to  flower-seed  in  the  brain  of  the  young 
poet,  and  very  soon  wrought  a  change 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  2$ 

in  the  whole  of  his  ambition.  First  of 
all,  they  made  liim  thoroughly  dissatis- 
fied with  what  he  had  hitherto  written, 
and  showed  him  —  always  a  very  salu- 
tary lesson  for  a  boy  —  that  the  ele- 
ments of  his  art  were  still  to  be  learned. 
Meanwhile,  the  business  of  ordinary  ed- 
ucation took  up  the  main  part  of  his 
time  ;  till  1826,  he  was  at  school  at 
Dulwich,  then  with  a  tutor  at  home, 
and  finally,  but  only  for  a  very  short 
time,  at  London  University. 

The  elder  Mr.  Browning  had  but  two 
children,  —  the  poet,  and  a  daughter  who 
kept  house  for  her  brother  in  his  closing 
years.  When  the  son  had  arrived  at 
that  age  at  which  the  bias  or  opportunity 
of  parents  usually  dictates  a  profession 
to  a  youth,  Mr.  Browning  asked  his  son 
what  he  intended  to  be.  It  was  kno\\Ti 
to  the  latter  that  his  sister  was  pro%dded 
for,  and   that   there  would   always   be 


26  THE  EARLY  CAREER 

enough  to  keep  him  also,  and  he  had 
the  singular  courage  to  decline  to  be 
rich.  He  appealed  to  his  father  whether 
it  would  not  be  better  for  him  to  see 
life  in  the  best  sense,  and  cultivate  the 
powers  of  his  mind,  than  to  shackle  him- 
self in  the  very  outset  of  his  career  by 
a  laborious  training,  foreign  to  that 
aim.  The  wisdom  or  unwisdom  of  such 
a  step  is  proved  by  its  measure  of  suc- 
cess. In  the  case  of  Mr.  Browning  the 
determination  has  never  been  regretted, 
and  so  great  was  the  confidence  of  the 
father  in  the  genius  of  the  son  that  the 
former  at  once  acquiesced  in  the  ])ro- 
posal.  At  this  time,  young  Browning's 
brain  was  full  of  colossal  schemes  of 
poems.  It  is  interesting  and  curious  to 
learn  that  at  a  time  of  life  when  almost 
every  poet,  whatever  his  ultimate  des- 
tination, is  trying  his  power  of  wing  in 
song,  Mr.  Browning,  the  early  Byronic 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  2/ 

lilt  ha\dng  been  thrown  aside,  did  not 
attempt  any  lyrical  exercise.  He 
planned  a  series  of  monodramatic  epics, 
narratives  of  the  life  of  typical  souls, 
—  a  gigantic  scheme  at  which  a  Victor 
Hugo  or  a  Lope  de  Vega  would  start 
back  aghast. 

Several  of  these  great  poems  were 
sketched ;  only  one  exists,  and  that  in 
fragmentary  form.  At  Richmond, 
whither  the  family  had  gone  to  live,  — 
on  the  22d  of  October,  1832,  — Mr. 
Browning  finished  a  poem  which  he 
named,  from  the  object,  not  the  subject, 
Pauline.  This  piece  was  read  and  ad- 
mired at  home,  and  one  day  his  aunt 
said  to  the  young  man :  — 

"  I  hear,  Robert,  that  you  have  writ- 
ten a  poem  ;  here  is  the  money  to  print 
it." 

Accordingly,  in  January,  1833,  there 
went   to   press,   anonymously,    a    little 


28  THE  EARL  T  CAREER 

book  of  seventy  pages,  which  remained 
virtually  unrecognized  until  the  author, 
to  preserve  it  from  piracy,  unwillingly 
received  it  among  the  acknowledged 
children  of  his  muse,  in  1867. 

But,  although  Pauline  was  excluded 
from  recognition  by  its  author  for  more 
than  thirty  years,  he  has  to  confess  that 
its  production  was  attended  with  cir- 
cumstances of  no  little  importance  to 
him.  It  was  the  intention  and  desire 
of  Mr.  Browning  that  the  authorship 
should  remain  entirely  unknown,  but 
Miss  Flower  told  the  secret  to  Mr.  Fox, 
who  reviewed  the  poem  with  great 
warmth  and  fullness  in  the  Monthly 
Repository.  But  a  more  curious  inci- 
dent was  that  a  copy  fell  into  the  hands 
of  John  Stuart  Mill,  who  was  only  six 
years  the  senior  of  the  poet.  It  de- 
lighted him  in  the  highest  degree,  and 
he  immediately  wrote  to  the  editor  of 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  29 

TnWs  Magazine^  the  only  periodical 
in  which  he  was  at  that  time  free  to 
express  himself,  for  leave  to  review 
Pauline  at  length.  The  reply  was  that 
nothing"  would  have  been  more  welcome, 
but  that,  unfortunately,  in  the  preced- 
ing number  the  poem  had  been  dis- 
missed with  one  line  of  contemptuous 
neglect.  Mr.  Mill's  opportunities  ex- 
tended no  further  than  this  one  maga- 
zine, but  at  his  death  there  came  into 
Mr.  Browning's  possession  this  identical 
copy,  the  blank  pages  of  which  were 
crowded  with  Mill's  annotations  and  re- 
marks. The  late  John  Forster  took 
such  an  interest  in  this  volume  that  he 
borrowed  it,  — "  convey,  the  wise  it 
call,"  —  and  when  he  died,  it  passed 
with  his  library  into  the  possession  of 
the  South  Kensington  Museum,  where 
the  curious  relic  of  the  youth  of  two 
eminent  men  has  at  last  found  a  rest- 


30  THE  EARLY   CAREER 

ing-place.  Nor  was  this  the  only  in- 
stance in  which  the  poem,  despite  its 
anonymity  and  its  rawness,  touched  a 
kindred  chord  in  a  man  of  genius. 
There  was  much  in  it  that  was  new, 
forcible,  and  fine,  —  such  passages  of 
description  as  this  of  the  wood  where 
Pauline  and  her  lover  met :  — 

"  Walled  in  with  a  sloped  mound  of  matted  shrubs, 
Dark,  tangled,  old  and  green,  still  sloping  down 
To  a  small  pool  whose  waters  lie  asleep 
Amid  the  trailing  boughs  turned  water-plants ; 
And  tall  trees  overarch  to  keep  us  in. 
Breaking  the  sunbeams  into  emerald  shafts. 
And  in  the  dreamy  water  one  small  group 
Of  two  or  three  strange  trees  are  got  together, 
Wondering  at  all  around,  as  strange  beasts  herd 
Together  far  from  their  own  land :  all  wildness, 
No  turf  nor  moss,  for  boughs  and  plants  pave  all. 
And  tongues  of  bank  go  shelving  in  the  lymph, 
Where  the  pale-throated  snake  reclines  his  head. 
And  old  gray  stones  lie  making  eddies  there. 
The  wild  mice  cross  them  dry-shod :  deeper  in  ! 
Shut  thy  soft  eyes  —  now  look  —  stiU  deeper  in ! 
This  is  the  very  heart  of  the  woods,  all  round 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  3 1 

Mountain-like  heaped  above  us  ;  yet  even  here 
One  pond  o£  water  gleams  ;  far  off  the  river 
Sweeps  like  a  sea,  barred  out  from  land  ;  but  one  — 
One  thin  clear  sheet  has  overleaped  and  wound 
Into  this  silent  depth,  which  gained,  it  lies 
Still,  as  but  let  by  sufferance ;  the  trees  hend 
O'er  it  as  wild  men  watch  a  sleeping  girl,^'  — 

or  such  fine  bursts  of  versification  as 
this  about  Andromeda  :  — 

' '  As  she  awaits  the  snake  on  the  wet  beach, 
By  the  dark  rock  and  the  white  wave  just  breaking 
At  her  feet ;  quite  naked  and  alone  ;  a  thing 
You  doubt  not,  fear  not  for,  secure  that  God 
Will  come  in  thunder  from  the  stars  to  save  her." 

Such  beauties  as  these  were  not  likely 
to  escape  the  notice  of  curious  lovers 
of  poetry.  Many  years  after,  when  Mr. 
Browning  was  living  in  Florence,  he 
received  a  letter  from  a  young  painter 
whose  name  was  quite  unknown  to  him, 
asking  him  whether  he  were  the  author 
of  a  poem  called  Pauline^  which  was 
somewhat  in  his  manner,  and  which  the 


32  THE  EARLY  CAREER 

writer  had  so  greatly  admired  that  he 
had  transcribed  the  whole  of  it  in  the 
British  Museum  reading-room.  The  let- 
ter was  signed  D.  G.  Rossetti,  and  thus 
began  Mr.  Browning's  acquaintance 
with  this  eminent  man.  But  to  the 
world  at  large  Pauline  was  a  sealed 
book,  by  nobody,  and  the  reviewers 
simply  ignored  it. 

One  very  creditable  exception  was 
the  Athenceum^  then  in  its  infancy, 
which  dedicated  several  columns  to  a 
kindly,  if  not  very  profound,  analysis, 
and  to  copious  quotations.  Mr.  Brown- 
ing discovered  long  afterward  that  this 
notice  was  written  by  Allan  Cunning- 
ham. 

After  the  publication  of  Pauline 
there  came  a  period  of  respite,  in  which 
the  poetical  ferment  of  the  young  wri- 
ter's mind  was  settling  down,  and  his 
genius  was  preparing  to  take  its  proper 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  33 

form.  The  scheme  of  illustrating,  in  a 
series  of  vast  biographies  in  blank  verse, 
whatever  was  unusual  or  tragical  in  the 
history  of  a  soul,  was  gradually  aban- 
doned, and  the  excitement  of  travel  took 
the  place  of  the  excitement  of  compo- 
sition. Mr.  Browning  set  out  upon  his 
Wanderjahr,  1834,  and  made  a  long 
stay  at  St.  Petersburg.  Of  all  that 
was  thought  and  planned  in  these  two 
years  preceding  the  rapid  authorship  of 
Paracelsus,  the  only  specimen  remain- 
ing is  to  be  found  in  four  interesting 
lyrics,  included  in  the  Dramatic  Lyrics 
of  1842,  and  now  finally  relegated  to 
Me7i  and  Women.  Two  of  these  were 
printed  first  in  Fox's  Monthly  Reposi- 
tory^ under  the  single  title  of  "Mad- 
house Cells,"  although  they  are  now 
known  to  every  reader  of  Mr.  Browning 
as  "  Joannes  Agricola  in  Meditation  " 
and  "  Porphyria's  Lover."    It  is  a  curi- 


34  THE  EARLY   CAREER 

ous  matter  for  reflection  that  two  poems 
so  unique  in  their  construction  and  con- 
ception, so  modern,  so  interesting,  so 
new,  could  be  printed  without  attract- 
ing attention,  so  far  as  it  would  appear, 
from  any  living  creature.  Mr.  Brown- 
ing's other  contributions  to  the  Monthly 
Repository  were  the  song,  now  inserted 
in  Pippa  Passes,  beginning  :  — 

"  A  King  lived  long  ago, 
In  the  morning  of  Lhe  world, 
When  earth  was  nigher  heayen  than  now," 

and  the  following  sonnet,^  which  has 
not  been  reprinted  in  any  edition  of  the 
poet's  works :  — 

"Eyes,  calm  beside  thee  (Lady  couldst  thou  know!), 
May  turn  away  thick  with  f  astgathering  tears : 

I  glance  not  where  all  gaze :  thrilling  and  low 
Their  passionate  praises  reach  thee  —  my  cheek 
wears 

^  I  owe  the  identification  of  this  sonnet,  which 
Mr.  Browning  had  forgotten,  to  Mrs.  Bridell-Fox. 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  35 

Alone  no  wonder  when  thou  passest  by ; 
Thy  tremulous  lids,  bent  and  suffused,  reply 
To  the  irrepressible  homage  which  doth  glow 

On  every  lip  but  mine  :  if  in  thine  ears 
Their  accents  linger  —  and  thou  dost  recall 
Me  as  I  stood,  still,  guarded,  very  pale, 
Beside  each  votarist  whose  lighted  brow 
Wore  worship  like  an  aureole,  '  O'er  them  all 
My  beauty,'  thou  Avilt  murmur,  '  did  prevail 
Save   that   one   only  '  :  —  Lady,    couldst    thou 

know !  ' ' 
August  17,  1834. 

Here  was  a  poet  witli  a  fresh  voice, 
appealing  to  the  intellectual  youth  of 
Europe  in  a  direct  way,  such  as  only 
one  other  man  had  dreamed  of,  and  that 
was  Heine. 

Then  came  Paracelsus^  written  in 
London  through  the  winter  of  1834, 
finished  in  March,  1835,  and  published 
before  the  summer.  This  work  has  had 
so  many  admirers  that  it  needs,  per- 
haps, a  little  courage  to  say  that  it  was 
surely  not  so  important  as  a  sign  of  its 


36  TEE  EARLY  CAREER 

author's  genius  as  tlie  little  pieces  just 
mentioned.  It  is  a  drama  of  a  shape- 
less kind,  parent  in  this  sort  of  a  mon- 
strous family  of  Festuses,  and  Balders^ 
and  Life  Dramas,  only  quite  lately  ex- 
tirpated, and  never  any  more,  it  is  hoped, 
to  flourish  above  ground.  There  are 
four  persons  in  the  drama :  Paracelsus, 
the  male  and  female  genii  of  his  career ; 
Festus  and  Michal,  friend  and  lover ; 
and  finally  Aprile,  the  foil  and  counter- 
poise to  his  ambitious  gravity.  Every 
one  knows  how  the  poem  is  conducted ; 
how  full  it  is  of  subtlety,  of  melody, 
of  eloquent  and  casuistical  intelligence. 
But  we  cannot  forget  that  it  is  a  drama 
in  which  one  of  the  characters,  more 
than  once,  expresses  himseK  in  upward 
of  three  hundred  lines  of  unbroken 
soliloquy.  The  precedent  was  bad,  as 
all  disregard  of  the  canons  of  artistic 
form  is  apt  to  be ;  and  in  the  hands  of 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  37 

his  imitators  Mr.  Browning  must  often 
have  shuddered  at  his  own  contorted 
reflection.  The  public  refused  to  have 
anything  to  say  to  so  strange  a  poem ; 
very  few  copies  were  sold,  and  the 
reviews  were  contemptuously  adverse. 
The  Athenceum,  even,  which  had  re- 
ceived Pauline  so  warmly,  dismissed 
Paracelsus  with  a  warning  to  the  au- 
thor that  it  was  useless  to  reproduce 
the  obscurity  of  Shelley  minus  his  po- 
etic beauty. 

But  certain  finer  minds  here  and  there 
recognized  the  treasury  of  power  and 
genius  concealed  in  this  crabbed  shape. 
The  Examiner^  in  particular,  contained 
a  review  of  the  poem  at  great  length, 
in  which  full  justice  was  done  to  Mr. 
Browning's  genius.  This,  again,  was 
the  commencement  of  a  memorable  in- 
timacy. But  in  the  meantime  the  young 
poet  formed  the  acquaintance   of  one 


38  THE  EARLY  CAREER 

of  the  most  striking  personages  of  that 
generation  —  Macready,  the  tragedian. 
This  hajipened  at  a  dinner  at  the  house 
of  W.  J.  Fox,  on  the  27th  of  Novem- 
ber, 1835.  The  actor  was  exceedingly- 
charmed  with  the  young  and  ardent 
writer,  who,  he  said,  looked  more  like  a 
poet  than  any  man  he  had  ever  met. 
He  read  Paracelsus  with  a  sort  of 
ecstasy,  and  cultivated  Mr.  Browning's 
acquaintance  on  every  occasion.  He 
asked  him  to  spend  New  Year's  Day 
with  him  at  his  country-house  at  Els- 
tree,  and  on  the  last  day  of  1835,  Mr. 
Browning  found  himself  at  "  The  Blue 
Posts  "  waiting  for  the  coach,  in  com- 
pany with  two  or  three  other  persons, 
who  looked  at  him  with  curiosity.  One 
of  these,  a  tall,  ardent,  noticeable 
young  feUow,  constantly  caught  his  eye, 
but  as  the  strangers  knew  one  another, 
and  as   Mr.    Browning   knew  none   of 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  39 

them,  no  conversation  passed  as  they 
drove  northward.  It  turned  out  that 
they  were  all  Macready's  guests,  one  of 
the  elder  men  being  George  Cattermole, 
while  the  noticeable  youth  was  no  other 
than  John  Forster.  He,  on  being  in- 
troduced to  Mr.  Browning,  said :  "  Did 
you  see  a  little  notice  of  you  I  wrote  in 
i]xQ  Examiner?  The  friendship  so  be- 
gun lasted,  with  a  certain  interval,  until 
the  end  of  Forster's  life. 

The  acquaintance  with  Macready 
deepened  rapidly  on  both  sides.  The 
actor  had  scarcely  finished  reading 
Paracelsus  before  he  began  to  think 
that  here  was  a  tragic  poet  to  his  mind. 
He  suggested  that  Mr.  Browning  should 
write  him  an  acting  play,  and  the  sub- 
ject of  Narses,  the  eunuch  who  con- 
quered Italy  for  Justinian,  was  discussed 
between  them.  At  first  the  actor  seemed 
more  eager  in  the  matter  than  the  poet. 


40  THE  EARLY  CAREER 

Early   in   1836,   Macready   made    this 
striking  entry  in  his  journal :  — 

"  Browning  said  that  I  had  bit  him  hy 
my  performance  of  Othello,  and  I  told  him 
I  hoped  I  should  make  the  blood  come.  It 
would,  indeed,  be  some  recompense  for  the 
miseries,  the  humiliations,  the  heart-sicken- 
ing disgusts  which  I  have  endured  in  my 
profession,  if,  by  its  exercise,  I  had  awak- 
ened a  spirit  of  poetry  whose  influence 
would  elevate,  ennoble,  and  adorn  our  de- 
graded drama.    May  it  be  !  " 

In  April,  1836,  the  miseries  to  which 
Macready  referred,  and  which  were 
caused  by  the  meanness  of  his  manager 
and  the  bad  state  of  the  law  of  contract, 
were  suddenly  brought  to  a  culmination. 
One  evening,  after  playing  part  of  Rich- 
ard 11.^  and  being  forbidden  to  con- 
clude the  tragedy,  Macready's  patience 
suddenly  failed  him,  and  he  inflicted 
upon  the  notorious  and  ridiculous  Mr. 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  4 1 

Alfred  Bunn  a  sound  thrashing.  Not- 
withstanding this  unfortunate  contre- 
temps, to  which  Mr.  Macready's  chival- 
rous ideal  gave  more  importance  in  his 
own  eyes  than  was  felt  by  an  indulgent 
and  scandal-loving  public,  it  was  pos- 
sible, as  early  as  May  26th,  1836,  to 
bring  out  at  Covent  Garden  Theatre, 
under  the  management  of  Mr.  Osbald- 
iston,  Talfourd's  new  tragedy  of  Ion. 
The  supper  which  succeeded  the  first 
performance  of  this  extremely  successful 
play  was  a  momentous  occasion  to  Mr. 
Browning.  He  found  himself  seated 
opposite  to  Macready,  who  was  sup- 
ported on  his  right  hand  and  his  left 
by  two  elderly  gentlemen,  in  whom 
the  young  poet  recognized  for  the  first 
time  "William  Wordsworth  and  Walter 
Savage  Landor.  In  the  course  of  the 
evening  Talfourd,  with  marked  kind- 
ness, proposed  the  name  of  the  youngest 


42  THE  EARLY  CAREER 

English  poet,  and  Wordsworth,  lean- 
ing across  the  table,  said,  with  august 
affability,  "  I  am  proud  to  drink  your 
health,  Mr.  Browning!"  The  latter 
saw  much  of  Wordsworth  during  the 
next  few  years,  for  Talfourd  invited 
him  to  his  house  whenever  Wordsworth 
came  up  to  town.  He  listened  to  his 
slow  talk  with  reverence  and  interest, 
but  never  got  over  the  somewhat  chill- 
ing and  awful  personal  bearing  of  the 
old  man.  With  Landor,  on  the  con- 
trary, Mr.  Browning  afterward  became, 
as  readers  of  Forster's  life  must  be 
aware,  extremely  intimate,  and  helped, 
indeed,  to  add  sunshine  to  the  last  dark 
days  of  that  leonine  exile.  To  return, 
however,  to  the  "  Ion "  supper :  the 
success  of  that  tragedy  had  whetted  the 
appetite  of  all  the  luckless  playwrights 
of  the  day,  and  one  of  them.  Miss  Mit- 
ford,  with  pert  audacity,   ventured  to 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  43 

propose  a  poetic  play  to  the  tragedian 
while  he  was  at  table.  But  she  utterly- 
failed  in  her  ruse,  and  Mr.  Browning 
was,  therefore,  doubly  surprised  when, 
as  the  guests  were  leaving,  jNIacready 
came  behind  him  on  the  stairs,  and,  lay- 
ing his  hand  on  his  arm,  said,  "  Write 
a  play.  Browning,  and  keep  me  from 
going  to  America !  "  It  was  said  so 
earnestly  that  there  could  be  no  doubt 
that  it  was  meant,  and  Mr.  Browning 
simply  replied,  "  Shall  it  be  historical 
and  English  ?  What  do  you  say  to  a 
drama  on  Strafford  ?  "  In  this  rapid 
interchange  of  sympathies  Mr.  Brown- 
ing's next  work  was  conceived,  but  it 
was  several  months  before  he  satisfied 
himself  that  he  was  sufficiently  read  in 
the  historical  part  of  the  subject  to  fill 
up  the  plot.  On  the  19th  of  Novem- 
ber, 1836,  the  tragedy  of  Strafford  was 
brought,  almost  finished,  to  Macready ; 


44  THE  EARLY  CAREER 

in  Marcli  of  the  next  year  it  was  com- 
pleted and  put  in  rehearsal,  and,  on  the 
first  of  May,  it  was  brought  out  on  the 
boards  of  Covent  Garden  Theatre. 

It  is  time  now  to  deny  a  statement 
that  has  been  repeated  ad  nauseam  in 
every  notice  that  professes  to  give  an  ac- 
count of  Mr.  Browning's  career.  What- 
ever is  said  or  not  said,  it  is  always  re- 
marked that  his  plays  have  "failed"  on 
the  stage.  In  point  of  fact,  the  three 
plays  which  he  has  brought  out  have  all 
succeeded,  and  have  owed  it  to  fortui- 
tous circumstances  that  their  tenure 
on  the  boards  has  been  comparatively 
short.  Strafford  was  produced  when 
the  finances  of  Covent  Garden  Theatre 
were  at  their  lowest  ebb,  and  nothing 
was  done  to  give  dignity  or  splendor  to 
the  performance.  "  Not  a  rag  for  the 
new  tragedy,"  said  Mr.  Osbaldiston. 
The  king  was  taken  by  Mr.  Dale,  who 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  45 

was  stone-deaf,  and  who  acted  so  badly 
that,  as  one  of  the  critics  said,  it  was  a 
pity  that  the  pit  did  not  rise  as  one  man 
and  push  him  off  the  stage.  All  sorts 
of  alterations  were  made  in  the  text ; 
where  the  poet  spoke  of  "grave  gray 
eyes,"  the  manager  corrected  it  in  re- 
hearsal to  "black  eyes."  But  at  last 
Macready  appeared,  in  the  second  scene 
of  the  second  act,  in  more  than  his 
wonted  majesty,  crossing  and  recross- 
ing  the  stage  like  one  of  Vandyke's 
courtly  personages  come  to  life  again, 
and  Miss  Helen  Faucit  threw  such  ten- 
derness and  passion  into  the  part  of 
Lady  Carlisle  as  surpassed  all  that  she 
had  previously  displayed  of  histrionic 
power.  Under  these  circumstances,  and 
in  spite  of  the  dull  acting  of  Vanden- 
hoff,  who  played  Pym  without  any  care 
or  interest,  the  play  was  well  received 
on  the  fii'st  night,  and  on  the  second 


46  THE  EARLY  CAREER 

night  was  applauded  with  enthusiasm  by 
a  crowded  house.  There  was  every  expec- 
tation that  the  tragedy  would  have  no 
less  favorable  a  "  run  "  than  Ion  had  en- 
joyed, but  after  five  nights,  Vandenhoff 
suddenly  withdrew,  and  though  Elton 
volunteered  to  take  his  place,  the  finan- 
cial condition  of  the  theatre,  in  spite  of 
the  undiminished  popularity  of  the  piece, 
put  an  end  to  its  representation. 

Mr.  Browning,  the  elder,  had  paid 
for  the  cost  of  Paracelsus ;  Strafford 
was  taken  by  Longmans,  and  brought 
out,  at  their  expense,  as  a  little  volume, 
—  not,  like  most  of  the  tragedies  of  the 
day,  in  dark-gray  paper  covers,  with 
a  white  label.  However,  at  that  time 
the  public  absolutely  declined  to  buy 
Mr.  Browning's  books,  and  Strafford, 
although  more  respectfully  received  by 
the  press,  was  as  great  a  financial  fail- 
ure as  Paracelsus.     It  was  part  of  Mr. 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  47 

Browning's  essentially  masculine  order 
of  mind  to  be  in  no  wise  disheartened 
or  detached  from  his  purpose  by  this 
indifference  of  the  public.  He  was 
silent  for  three  years,  but  all  the  time 
busy  with  copious  production.  The  suc- 
cess of  Strafford  on  the  stage  led  Mr. 
Browning's  thoughts  very  naturally  to 
the  drama,  and  besides  the  purely  IjT^ical 
masque  or  "proverb  "  of  Pippa  Passes, 
he  concluded,  before  1840,  two  tragedies 
with  the  intention  of  seeing  them  acted. 
These  were  King  Victor  and  King 
Charles,  and  Mansoor  the  Hierophant, 
rebaptized  on  publication  by  the  name 
of  The  Return  of  the  Druses.  These 
plays,  however,  found  no  manager  or 
publisher  willing  to  accept  them,  and 
the  author  fell  back  on  the  dream  that 
he  had  commenced  his  career  with, 
namely,  that  of  chronicling  in  poetry 
the  whole  life  of  a  single  soul.     He  set 


48  THE  EARLY  CAREER 

to  work,  and  produced  one  of  the  most 
considerable,  certainly  one  of  the  most 
characteristic,  of  his  works,  in  the  epic 
of  Soixlello,  begun  in  1838,  finished  and 
printed  in  1840.  It  is  scarcely  neces- 
sary to  remark  that  for  forty  years  this 
book  has  been  an  eminent  stumbling- 
block,  not  merely  in  the  path  of  fools, 
but  in  that  of  very  sensible  and  cul- 
tivated people.  "  The  entirely  unintel- 
ligible Sordello  "  has  enjoyed  at  least 
its  due  share  of  obloquy  and  neglect. 
There  are  not  a  few  of  Mr.  Browning's 
readers  who  would  miss  it  from  the 
collection  of  his  books  more  than  any 
other  of  his  longer  poems.  It  possesses 
passages  of  melody  and  insight,  fresh 
enough,  surprising  enough  to  form  the 
whole  stock-in-trade  of  a  respectable 
poet ;  it  needs  reading  three  times,  but 
on  the  third  even  a  school-boy  of  tolera- 
ble intelligence  wiU   find   it  luminous, 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  49 

if  not  entirely  lucid,  and  haK  the  charge 
of  obscurity  is  really  a  confession  of  in- 
dolence and  inattention. 

"Who  -wills  may  hear  '  Sordello's '  story  told," 

and  if  our  space  to-day  would  give  us 
leave  to  roam  through  its  fragrant  pages, 
we  might  find  a  thousand  reasons  why 
Sordello  ought  to  be  one  of  the  most 
readable  of  books. 

And  yet  the  Naddos  of  contemporary 
criticism  were  not  wholly  wrong.  The 
book  is  difficidt,  and  Mr.  Browning  in 
the  philosophic  afternoon  of  life  frankly 
confesses  as  much.  It  is  hard  reading, 
over-condensed,  over-rapid,  like  much  of 
Milton  in  its  too  arrogant  contempt  for 
the  commonplace  habits  of  the  intelli- 
gence. This  is  the  author's  explanation 
of  his  error,  for  that  it  was  an  error  he 
is  perhaps  more  ready  than  some  of  his 
admirers  to  admit.     In  1838,  the  con- 


50  THE  EARLY  CAREER 

dition  of  English  poetry  was  singularly 
tame  and  namby-pamby.  Tennyson's 
voice  was  only  heard  by  a  few.  The 
many  delighted  in  poor  "L.  E.  L.," 
whose  sentimental "  golden  violets  "  and 
gushing  impt'ovvisatores  had  found 
a  tragic  close  at  Cape  Coast  Castle. 
Among  living  poets,  the  most  popular 
were  good  old  James  Montgomery,  dron- 
ing on  at  his  hopeless  insipidities  and 
graceful  "goodnesses,"  the  Hon.  Mrs. 
Norton,  a  sort  of  soda-water  Byron,  and 
poor,  rambling  T.  K.  Hervey.  The 
plague  of  annuals  and  books  of  beauty 
was  on  the  land,  with  its  accompanying 
flood  of  verses  by  Alaric  A.  Watts  and 
"Delta"  Moir.  These  virtuous  and 
now  almost  forgotten  poetasters,  had 
brought  the  art  of  poetry  into  such  dis- 
esteem,  with  their  puerilities  and  their 
thin,  diluted  sentiment,  that  verse  was 
beginning  to  be  considered  unworthy  of 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  5  I 

exercise  by  a  serious  or  original  thinker. 
Into  this  ocean  of  thin  soup  Mr.  Brown- 
ing threw  his  small  square  of  solid  pem- 
mican,  —  a  little  mass  which  could  have 
supplied  ideas  and  images  to  a  dozen 
"  L.  E.  L.'s  "  without  losing  much  of 
its  consistence.  Of  course,  to  a  genera- 
tion long  fed  on  such  thin  diet,  the  new 
contribution  seemed  much  more  like  a 
stone  than  like  anything  edible,  and 
even  to  this  day  there  are  lovers  of  po- 
etry who  can  get  as  little  out  of  it  as 
Alton  Locke  could.  About  1863,  Mr. 
Browning,  becoming  a  little  impatient 
of  the  long-repeated  denigration  of  his 
favorite  offspring,  set  about  rewriting 
Sordello  on  a  simpler  principle ;  need- 
less to  say  that  was  a  failure,  and  there 
are  few  who  will  regret  that  for  once, 
at  least,  so  profound  a  student  of  the 
human  heart  wrote  rather  as  he  himself 
felt  than  as  his  readers,  even  the  most 


52  TEE  EARLY  CAREER 

sympathetic  of  them,  might  have  wished. 
The  book  has  become  a  classic,  and  to 
each  coming  generation  will  in  all  prob- 
ability present  less  difficulty  than  to  the 
preceding  one. 

But  from  the  popular  point  of  view 
Sordello  was  a  failure,  and  in  the  face 
of  so  much  poetry  still  unprinted,  Mr. 
Browning  could  not  but  ruefully  remem- 
ber how  expensive  his  books  had  been 
to  his  sympathetic  and  uncomplaining 
father.  To  go  on  indefinitely  in  this 
way  was  scarcely  to  be  thought  of,  and 
yet  poetry  kept  in  a  desk,  on  the  Hora- 
tian  principle,  is  a  property  that  wears 
out  the  soul  with  hope  deferred.  One 
day,  as  the  poet  was  discussing  the  mat- 
ter with  Mr.  Edward  Moxon,  the  pub- 
lisher, the  latter  remarked  that  at  that 
time  he  was  bringing  out  some  editions 
of  the  old  Elizabethan  dramatists  in  a 
comparatively  cheap  form,  and  that  if 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  53 

Mr.  Browning  would  consent  to  print 
his  poems  as  pamphlets,  using  this  cheap 
type,  the  expense  would  be  very  incon- 
siderable. The  poet  jumped  at  the 
idea,  and  it  was  agreed  that  each  poem 
should  form  a  separate  brochure  of  just 
one  sheet,  —  sixteen  pages,  in  double 
columns,  —  the  entire  cost  of  which 
should  not  exceed  twelve  or  fifteen 
pounds.  In  this  fashion  began  the  cele- 
brated series  of  Bells  and  Pomegran- 
ates, eight  numbers  of  which,  a  perfect 
treasury  of  fine  poetry,  came  out  succes- 
sively between  1841  and  1846.  Pippa 
Passes  led  the  way,  and  was  priced 
first  at  sixpence  ;  then,  the  sale  being  in- 
considerable, at  a  shilling,  which  greatly 
encouraged  the  sale ;  and  so,  slowly, 
up  to  half  a  crown,  at  which  the  price 
of  each  number  finally  rested.  As  the 
advertisement  of  Bells  and  Pomegran- 
ates has  never  been  reprinted,  and  as 


54  T^E  EARLY  CAREER 

that  volume  is  not  very  common,  I  make 
no  apology  for  reproducing  that  charac- 
teristic little  document :  — 

"  Two  or  three  years  ago  I  wrote  a  play, 
about  which  the  chief  matter  I  much  care 
to  recollect  at  present  is,  that  a  pitfuU  of 
good-natured  people  applauded  it.  Ever 
since,  I  have  been  desirous  of  doing  some- 
thing in  the  same  way  that  should  better  re- 
ward their  attention.  What  follows  I  mean 
for  the  first  of  a  series  of  dramatical  pieces, 
to  come  out  at  intervals,  and  I  amuse  my- 
self by  fancying  that  the  cheap  mode  in 
which  they  appear  will  for  once  help  me  to 
a  sort  of  pit-audience  again.  Of  course, 
such  a  work  must  go  on  no  longer  than  it  is 
liked ;  and  to  provide  against  a  certain  and 
but  too  possible  contingency,  let  me  hasten 
to  say  now  what,  if  I  were  sure  of  success, 
I  would  try  to  say  circumstantially  enough 
at  the  close,  that  I  dedicate  my  best  inten- 
tions most  admli'ingly  to  the  author  of  Ion, 
—  most  affectionately  to  Serjeant  Talfourd." 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  55 

There  had  been  nothing  in  the  pas- 
toral kind  written  so  delightfully  as 
Pippa  Passes  since  the  days  of  the  Ja- 
cobean dramatists.  It  was  inspired  by 
the  same  feeling  as  gave  charm  and 
freshness  to  the  masques  of  Day  and 
Nabbes,  but  it  was  carried  out  with  a 
mastery  of  execution  and  fullness  of 
knowledge  such  as  those  unequal  wri- 
ters could  not  dream  of  exercising.  The 
figure  of  Pippa  herself,  the  unconscious 
messenger  of  good  spiritual  tidings  to 
so  many  souls  in  dark  places,  is  one  of 
the  most  beautifid  that  Mr.  Browning 
has  produced,  and  in  at  least  one  of  the 
more  serious  scenes,  —  that  between  Se- 
bald  and  Ottima,  —  he  reaches  a  tragic 
height  that  places  him  on  a  level  with 
the  greatest  modern  dramatists.  Of  the 
lyrical  interludes  and  seed-pearls  of 
song  scattered  through  the  scenes,  it  is 
a   commonplace    to   say   that    nothing 


56  THE  EARLY  CAREER 

more  exquisite  or  natural  was  ever  writ- 
ten, or  rather  warbled.  The  public  was 
first  won  to  Mr.  Browning  by  Pippa 
Passes.  Next  year,  1842,  he  printed 
the  old  tragedy  of  ICing  Victor  and 
Kiiig  Charles,  which  he  had  had  by 
him  for  some  years.  If  Pippa  Passes 
was,  as  Miss  Barrett  said,  a  pomegran- 
ate that  showed 

"  A  heart  within  blood-tinctured,  of  a  veined  hu- 
manity," 

this  latter  drama  was  a  bell,  clear-toned 
and  clangorous,  fitly  rung  before  the 
curtain  should  rise  upon  a  stately  the- 
atrical spectacle.  The  poetry  here,  as 
in  Strafford,  which  it  resembles,  is  care- 
fully subordinated  to  stage  effect  and 
movement,  and  it  is  unfortunate  that 
Mr.  Browning  was  not  successful  in 
getting  it  accepted  by  any  manager,  for 
it  would  be  a  popular  piece  on  the 
stage.     Not  a  lyrical  passage,  scarcely 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  57 

a  lyrical  touch,  checks  the  business  and 
bustle  of  the  scenes  till  Victor  dies  so 
majestically,  with  his  son's  cro\vn  on  his 
head,  defying  d'Ormea.  The  same 
year  followed  the  brief  pamphlet  or 
booklet  called  Dramatic  Lyrics.  Short 
as  this  book  is,  only  sixteen  pages,  it 
was  shorter  still  when  the  printer's 
devil  came  from  Mr.  Moxon's  shop  to 
ask  for  more  copy  to  fill  up  the  sheet. 
Mr.  Browning  gave  him  2i,  jeu  d'espHt 
which  he  had  "WTitten  to  amuse  little 
WiUie  Macready,  and  which  he  had 
had  no  idea  of  pubhshing.  This  was 
The  Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin^  which 
has  probably  introduced  its  author's 
name  into  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
homes  where  otherwise  it  never  would 
have  penetrated.  In  other  respects  the 
collection  was  sparse,  but  remarkable 
enough.  First  came  the  three  "  Cava- 
lier Tunes,"  as  at  present ;  then,  under 


58  THE  EARLY  CAREER 

the  titles  of  "Italy"  and  "France," 
what  we  now  find  among  the  Dramatic 
Romances  as  "  My  Last  Duchess  "  and 
"Count  Gismond."  Then  the  "Inci- 
dent of  the  French  Camp  "  and  "  The 
Soliloquy  of  the  Spanish  Cloister " ; 
then  "  In  a  Gondola,"  perhaps  the  most 
delicate  in  harmonic  effect  of  aU  Mr. 
Browning's  lyrics  ;  then  "  Artemis  Pro- 
logizes " ;  then  "  Waring,"  in  which 
was  sung  the  disappearance  of  Mr.  Al- 
fred Dommett,  who,  after  a  long  exile, 
returned  from  Yishnuland,  or  New  Zea- 
land, a  few  years  ago  ;  then  "  Rudel 
and  the  Lady  of  Tripoli,"  "  Cristina," 
"  Mad-house  Cells,"  —  which  we  have 
already  discussed,  —  "  Through  the  Me- 
tidja,"  and  finally  "  The  Pied  Piper." 
Early  in  1843  there  followed  the  glow- 
ing and  passionate  tragedy  The  Return 
of  the  Druses^  a  play  which  would  be 
sure  to  rivet  attention  on  the  stage,  but 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  59 

which  no  manager  hitherto  has  had  the 
courage  to  produce. 

But,  in  the  meantime,  the  hopes  that 
had  sprung  eternal  in  the  breasts  of  all 
dramatic  poets  began  to  cluster  once 
more  around  the  person  of  Mr.  Ma- 
cready.  That  illustrious  actor,  by  that 
time  recognized  as  by  far  the  most  able 
and  eminent  tragedian  in  the  English- 
speaking  world,  after  performing  for  a 
season  at  the  Haymarket,  took  Drury 
Lane  Theatre  under  his  own  manage- 
ment, and  held  out  flattering  promises 
to  the  poets.  This  season  opened  on 
the  10th  of  December,  1842,  with  The 
Patrician  s  Daughter  of  Mr.  Westland 
Marston.  This  was  the  first  work  of  a 
young  man  of  great  promise,  of  whom 
much  had  been  talked  in  literary  and 
theatrical  circles.  Mr.  Macready  took 
the  part  of  Mordaunt,  Miss  Helen  Fau- 
cit  that  of  Lady  Mabel  Lynterne,  and 


60  THE  EARLY  CAREER 

great  pains  were  taken  to  secure  a  thor- 
oughly satisfactory  cast.  It  was  dis- 
tinctly understood  that  if  The  Patri- 
cian s  Duughter  was  a  great  success, 
the  public  was  to  be  rewarded  by  a  se- 
ries of  original  tragedies  by  poets  of  re- 
pute. Everything  seemed  as  glittering 
and  auspicious  as  possible,  and  nobody 
knew  what  a  dangerous  game  Macready 
was  playing.  He  was,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  on  the  verge  of  bankruptcy,  and 
driven  almost  to  distraction  by  a  variety 
of  vexations.  Unfortunately,  Marston's 
play,  from  which  so  much  was  expected, 
enjoyed  only  a  success  of  esteem.  It 
was  removed,  to  be  succeeded  on  the 
boards  by  a  play  called  PligJited  Troth^ 
by  a  brother  of  George  Darley,  and  a 
man  of  the  same  peevish,  hopeless  tem- 
perament as  his  more  distinguished  rel- 
ative. This  tragedy  proved  to  be  mis- 
erable trash,  and  was  scarcely  endured 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  6 1 

a  single  night.  But,  in  the  meantime, 
Mr.  Bro^vning,  who  had  been  asked  by 
Macready  to  WTite  a  play  for  him,  had 
devised  and  composed,  in  the  space  of 
five  days,  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
of  his  works,  A  Blot  In  the  ^Scutch- 
eon. This  had  been  received,  and 
delight  had  been  expressed  by  Ma^ 
cready  on  reading  it.  The  author  was, 
therefore,  surprised  that,  on  the  with- 
drawal of  Plighted  Twth,  he  received 
no  invitation,  in  accordance  wdth  eti- 
quette, to  read  it  aloud  to  the  actors 
previous  to  rehearsal.  He  had  no  ink- 
ling whatever  of  IVIacready's  embarrass- 
ments, and  not  the  slightest  notion  that 
it  was  hoped  that  he  would  withdraw 
the  piece.  At  last,  on  Saturday,  the 
4th  of  February,  1843,  Macready  called 
Mr.  Browning  into  his  private  room, 
and  said  to  him  :  — 

"Your  play  was  read  to  the  actors 


62  THE  EARLY  CAREER 

yesterday,  and  tliey  received  it  with 
shouts  of  laughter." 

"Who  read  it?" 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Wihnot." 

Now,  Wilniot  was  the  prompter,  a 
broadly  comic  personage  with  a  wooden 
leg  and  a  very  red  face,  whose  vulgar 
sallies  were  the  delight  of  all  the  idle 
jesters  that  hung  about  the  theatre. 
That  such  a  drama  as  A  Blot  in  the 
^Scutcheon  should  be  given  to  Wihnot 
to  read  was  simply  an  insult,  and  one 
of  which  Mr.  Browning  did  not  conceal 
his  perception.  Macready  saw  his  mis- 
take, and  said  :  "  Wilmot  is  a  ridicu- 
lous being,  of  course.  On  Monday  I 
myself  will  read  it  to  the  actors."  On 
Monday,  accordingly,  he  read  it,  but  he 
announced  to  Mr.  Browning  that  he 
should  not  act  in  it  himself,  but  that 
Phelps,  then  quite  a  new  man,  would 
take  the  principal  part.     This  was  an 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  63 

unheard-of  thing  in  those  days,  when  it 
was  supposed  that  Macready  was  abso- 
lutely essential  to  a  new  tragedy.  Of 
course  his  hope  was  that  Mr.  Brown- 
ing would  say :  "  You  not  play  in  it  ? 
Then,  of  course,  I  withdraw  it."  But 
the  actor's  manner  was  so  far  from  sug- 
gesting that  truth  that  the  poet  never 
suspected  the  real  state  of  the  case. 
He  accepted  Phelps,  but,  when  the  re- 
hearsal began  on  Tuesday,  Phelps  was 
very  ill  with  EngKsh  cholera,  and  could 
not  be  present,  so  Macready  read  his 
part  for  him.  On  Wednesday  Mr. 
Browning  noticed  that  Macready  was 
not  merely  reading :  he  was  rehearsing 
the  part,  mo\dng  across  the  stage,  and 
counting  his  steps.  When  Mr.  Brown- 
ing arrived  on  Thursday,  there  was 
poor  Phelps  sitting  close  to  the  door,  as 
white  as  a  sheet,  evidently  very  poorly. 
Macready  began :  "As  Mr.  Phelps   is 


64  THE  EARLY  CAREER 

SO  ill —  you  are  very  ill,  are  you  not, 
Mr.  Phelps  ?  —  it  will  be  impossible  for 
him  to  master  his  part  by  Saturday,  and 
I  shall  therefore  take  it  myself."  Mr. 
Browning  was  not  at  all  pleased  with 
this  shuffling,  for  which  he  could  divine 
no  cause,  and  he  was  still  more  annoyed 
at  the  changes  which  were  being  made 
in  the  poem.  The  title  was  to  be 
changed  to  "  The  Sisters,"  the  first  act 
was  to  be  cut  out,  and  it  was  to  end 
without  any  tragic  ^?iaZe,  but  with  these 
sublime  lines,  due  to  the  unaided  genius 
of  Macready  himself : 

"Within  a  monastery's  solitude, 

Penance  and  prayer  shall  wear  my  life  away." 

Mr.  Browning  was  determined,  if  pos- 
sible, to  check  this  wanton  sacrifice  of 
the  poem,  and  so  he  took  the  MS.  to 
his  publisher  Moxon,  who  also  had  a 
quarrel  with  Macready,  and  who  was 
therefore   only  too  pleased   to   cooper- 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  65 

ate  in  his  confusion.  A  Blot  in  the 
^Scutcheon  was  printed  in  a  few  hours, 
in  a  single  sheet,  as  part  five  of  Bells 
and  Pomegranates^  and  was  in  the 
hands  of  each  of  the  actors  before  Mr. 
Browning  reached  the  theatre  on  Fri- 
day morning.  As  he  entered,  he  met 
Phelps,  who  was  waiting  for  him  at  the 
door,  and  who  said : 

"  It  is  true,  sir,  that  I  have  been  ill, 
but  I  am  better  now,  and  if  you  chose 
to  give  the  part  to  me,  which  I  can 
hardly  expect  you  to  do,  I  should  be 
able  to  act  it  to-morrow  night." 

"  But  is  it  possible,"  said  Mr.  Brown- 
ing, "  that  you  could  learn  it  so  soon  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  answered  Phelps,  "  I  should 
sit  up  all  night  and  know  it  perfectly." 

Mr.  Browning's  determination  was 
soon  taken ;  he  took  Phelps  with  him 
into  the  gTeen-room,  where  Macready 
was   ah'eady  studying  the   play  in   its 


66  TEE  EARLY  CAREER 

printed  form,  with  the  actors  around 
him.  Mr.  Browning  stopped  him,  and 
said: 

"  I  find  that  Mr.  Phelps,  although  he 
has  been  ill,  feels  himself  quite  able  to 
take  the  part,  and  I  shaU  be  very  glad 
to  leave  it  in  his  hands."  Macready 
rose  and  said : 

"  But  do  you  understand  that  I,  /, 
am  going  to  act  the  part  ?  " 

"  I  shall  be  very  glad  to  intrust  it  to 
Mr.  Phelps,"  said  Mr.  Browning,  upon 
which  Macready  crumpled  up  the  play 
he  was  holding  in  his  hand,  and  threw 
it  to  the  other  end  of  the  room. 

After  such  an  event,  it  was  with  no 
very  hopeful  feelings  that  Mr.  Brown- 
ing awaited  the  first  performance  on  the 
next  night,  February  11th.  He  would 
not  allow  his  parents  or  his  sister  to  go 
to  the  theatre ;  no  tickets  were  sent  to 
him,  but  finding  that  the  stage-box  was 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  6/ 

his,  not  by  favor,  but  by  right,  he  went 
with  no  other  companion  than  Mr.  Ed- 
ward Moxon.  But  his  expectations  of 
failure  were  not  realized.  Phelps  acted 
magnificently,  carrying  out  the  remark 
of  Macready,  that  the  difference  be- 
tween himself  and  the  other  actors  was 
that  they  coidd  do  magnificent  things 
now  and  then,  on  a  spurt,  but  that  he 
could  always  command  his  effects.  An- 
derson, a  jeune  premier  of  promise, 
acted  the  young  lover  with  considerable 
spirit,  although  the  audience  was  not 
quite  sure  whether  to  laugh  or  no  when 
he  sang  his  song,  "  There  's  a  Woman 
like  a  Dewdrop,"  in  the  act  of  climbing 
in  at  the  window.  Finally,  Miss  Helen 
Faucit  almost  surpassed  herself  in  Mil- 
dred Tresham.  The  piece  was  entirely 
successfid,  though  Mr.  R.  H.  Home, 
who  was  in  the  front  of  the  pit,  tells  me 
that  Anderson  was  for  some  time  only 


68  THE  EARLY  CAREER 

half-serious,  and  quite  ready  to  have 
turned  traitor  if  the  public  had  encour- 
aged him.  When  the  curtain  went 
down,  the  applause  was  vociferous. 
Phelps  was  called  and  recalled,  and 
then  there  rose  the  cry  of  "  Author !  " 
To  this  Mr.  Browning  remained  silent 
and  out  of  sight,  and  the  audience  con- 
tinued to  shout  until  Anderson  came 
forward,  and  keeping  his  eye  on  Mr. 
Browning,  said,  "  I  believe  that  the  au- 
thor is  not  present,  but  if  he  is  I  entreat 
him  to  come  forward ! "  The  poet, 
however,  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  this  ap- 
peal, and  went  home  very  sore  with 
Macready,  and  what  he  considered  his 
purposeless  and  vexatious  schemings. 
A  Blot  in  the  ^Scutcheon  was  an- 
nounced to  be  played  "  three  times  a 
week  until  further  notice  "  ;  was  per- 
formed with  entire  success  to  crowded 
houses,  until  the  final  collapse  of  Ma- 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  69 

cready's  schemes  brouglit  it  abruptly  to 
a  close. 

Such  is  the  true  story  of  an  event  on 
which  Macready,  in  his  journals,  has 
kept  an  obstinate  silence,  and  which 
one  erring  critic  after  another  has 
chronicled  as  the  failure,  "  as  a  matter 
of  course,"  of  Mr.  Browning's  "  im- 
probable "  play.  Neither  on  its  first 
appearance,  nor  when  Phelps  revived  it 
at  Sadler's  Wells,  was  A  Blot  in  the 
^Scutcheon  received  by  the  public  oth- 
erwise than  with  warm  applause.  As 
in  the  case  of  Strafford^  a  purely  acci- 
dental circumstance,  unconnected  with 
Mr.  Browning,  cut  it  short  in  the  midst 
of  a  successful  run. 

Fired  with  the  memory  of  so  many 
plaudits,  Mr.  Browning  set  himself  to 
the  composition  of  another  actable  play, 
and  this  also  had  its  little  hour  of 
success,  though  not   uutil   many  years 


70  THE  EARLY  CAREER 

afterward.  Colombe's  Birthday^  which 
formed  number  six  of  Bells  and  Pome- 
granates.)  appeared  in  1843.  I  have 
before  me  at  the  present  moment  a 
copy  of  the  first  edition,  marked  for 
acting  by  the  author,  who  has  written  : 
"  I  made  the  alterations  in  this  copy  to 
suit  some  —  I  forget  what  —  projected 
stage  representation :  not  that  of  Miss 
Faucit,  which  was  carried  into  effect 
long  afterward."  The  stage  directions 
are  numerous  and  minute,  showing  the 
science  which  the  dramatist  had  gained 
since  he  first  essayed  to  put  his  crea- 
tions on  the  boards.  Some  of  the  sug- 
gestions are  characteristic  enough.  For 
instance,  "  unless  a  very  good  Valence  " 
is  found,  this  extremely  fine  speech, 
perhaps  the  jewel  of  the  play,  is  to  be 
left  out.  In  the  present  editions  the 
verses  run  otherwise.    Valence  speaks  : 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  71 

"He   stands,    a   man,    now;    stately,   strong  and 

wise  — 
One  great  aim,  like  a  giiiding-star,  before  — 
Which  tasks   strength,  wisdom,  stateliness  to  fol- 
low, 
As,  not  its  substance,  but  its  shine,  he  tracks. 
Nor  dreams  of  more  than,  just  evolving  these 
To  fullness,  will  suffice  him  to  life's  end. 
After  this  star,  out  of  a  night  he  springs, 
A  beggar's  cradle  for  the  throne  of  thrones 
He  quits ;  so  mounting,  feels  each  step  he  mounts, 
Nor  as  from  each  to  each  exultingly 
He  passes,  overleaps  one  grain  of  joy. 
This  for  his  own  good  :  —  with  the  world  each  g^ 
Of  God  and  man  —  Reality,  Tradition, 
Fancy,  and  Fact  —  so  well  environ  him, 
That  as  a  mystic  panoply  they  serve  — 
Of  force  untenanted  to  awe  mankind, 
And  work  his  purpose  out  with  half  the  world, 
While  he,  their  master,  dexterously  slipt 
From  such  encumbrance,  is  meantime  employed 
In  his  own  prowess  with  the  other  half. 
So  shall  he  go  on,  every  day's  success 
Adding,  to  what  is  He,  a  solid  strength,  — 
An  airy  might  to  what  encircles  him. 
Till  at  the  last,  so  life's  routine  shall  grow, 
That  as  the  Emperor  only  breathes  and  moves, 


72  THE  EARLY  CAREER 

His  shadow  shall  be  watched,  his  step  or  stalk 
Become  a  comf  crt  or  a  portent ;  how 
He  trails  his  ermine  take  significance,  — 
Till  even  his  power  shall  cease  his  power  to  be, 
And  most  his  weakness  men  shall  fear,  nor  van- 
quish 
Their  typified  invincibility. 
So  shall  he  go  on  greatening,  till  he  ends  — 
The  man  of  men,  the  spirit  of  all  flesh, 
The  fiery  centre  of  an  earthy  world !  " 

Mr.  Browning  says  that  very  little 
has  hitherto  been  printed  about  his  life, 
and  that  little  "  mostly  false."  A  cu- 
rious instance  of  this  last  clause  is  the 
statement  that  has  been  authoritatively 
made,  in  a  quarter  from  which  we  do 
not  expect  error,  to  the  effect  that  Co- 
lomhe's  Birthday  was  brought  out  by 
Miss  Cushman,  at  the  Haymarket,  in 
1844,  as  The  Duchess  of  Cleves.  The 
editor  of  Mr.  Browning's  letters  to 
Mr.  R.  H.  Home  was  probably  think- 
ing about  a  play,  with  a  "  Duchess  "  in 


OF  ROBERT  BROWNING  73 

the  title,  written  by  Henry  Chorley 
for  Miss  Cushman,  which  she  brought 
out  while  Mr.  Browning  was  in  Italy. 
It  seems  to  have  been  some  projected 
performance  of  Colomhe^s  Birthday  in 
1846,  by  Helen  Faucit,  to  whom  the 
poet  had  read  his  play,  that  caused  the 
latter  to  make  the  stage  directions  to 
which  I  have  just  referred.  In  point 
of  fact,  it  was  not  till  1852  that  Miss 
Faucit  produced,  and  with  marked  suc- 
cess, the  play  in  question. 

The  last  number  of  Bells  and  Pome- 
granates^ which  appeared  in  double  size, 
contained  a  quaint  rabbinical  apology 
for  the  general  title,  and  consisted  of 
two  plays,  Luria^  dedicated  to  Walter 
Savage  Landor,  and  A  SaWs  Tragedy. 
These  bore  the  date  1846,  and  with 
these  the  first  act  of  Mr.  Browning's 
public  as  well  as  private  life  would 
seem  to  have  closed,  for  on  the  12tli  of 


74     EARLY  CAREER    OF  BROWNING 

September,  1846,  he  was  married,  at 
St.  Marylebone,  to  Miss  Elizabeth  Bar- 
rett Barrett,  the  illustrious  poet,  and 
directly  afterward  proceeded  with  her 
to  find  a  new  home  in  Italy. 
April,  1881. 


PERSONAL  IMPRESSIONS 


PERSONAL  IMPRESSIONS 

.  Those  who  have  frequently  seen  our 
revered  and  beloved  friend  dui'iug  the 
past  year  will  hardly  join  in  the  general 
chorus  of  surprise  which  has  greeted 
the  death  of  one  so  strong  in  appear- 
ance and  so  hale  and  green.  Rather 
with  these  there  will  be  a  faint  sort  of 
congratulation  that  such  a  life,  so  mani- 
festly waning  in  essential  vigor,  should 
have  been  spared  the  indignities  of  de- 
cline, the  "  cold  gradations  of  decay." 
For  a  year  past  no  close  observer  could 
have  doubted  that  the  robustness  which 
seemed  still  invincible  in  the  summer  of 
1888  was  rudely  shaken.  Cold  upon 
cold  left  the  poet  weaker  ;  the  recupera- 
tive power  was  rapidly  and  continuously 


yS  PERSONAL  IMPRESSTONS 

on  the  decrease.  But  a  little  while  ago, 
and  to  think  of  Mr.  Browning  and  of 
illness  together  seemed  impossible.  It 
is  a  singular  fact  that  he  who  felt  so 
keenly  for  human  suffering  had  scarcely 
known,  by  experience,  what  physical 
pain  was.  The  vigor,  the  exemption 
from  feebleness,  which  marks  his  liter- 
ary genius,  accompanied  the  man  as 
well.  I  recollect  his  giving  a  pictur- 
esque account  of  a  headache  he  suffered 
from,  once,  in  St.  Petersburg,  about  the 
year  1834 !  Who  amongst  us  is  fortu- 
nate enough  to  remember  his  individual 
headaches?  I  seem  to  see  him  now, 
about  six  years  ago,  standing  in  the  east 
wind  on  the  doorstep  of  his  house  in 
Warwick  Crescent,  declaring  with  em- 
phasis that  he  felt  ill,  really  ill,  more 
ill  than  he  had  felt  for  half  a  century, 
and  looking  all  the  while,  in  spite  of 
that  indisposition,  a  monument  of  sturdy 


PERSONAL  IMPRESSIONS  79 

health.  Even  his  decline  has  been  the 
reluctant  fall  of  a  wholesome  and  well- 
balanced  being.  Painlessly,  without  in- 
tellectual obscuration,  demanding  none 
of  that  pity  that  he  dejDrecated,  he  falls 
asleep  in  Italy,  faint  indeed,  yet,  to  the 
very  last,  pursuing.  Since  those  we 
love  must  pass  away ;  since  the  light 
must  sooner  or  later  sink  in  the  lantern, 
there  is,  perhaps,  no  better  way  than 
this.  We  may  repeat  of  him  what  Sir 
Thomas  Browne  said  of  his  friend,  "  We 
have  missed  not  our  desires  in  his  soft 
departure,  which  was  scarce  an  expira- 
tion." 

It  is  natural  in  these  first  moments 
to  think  more  of  the  man  than  of  his 
works.  The  latter  remain  with  us,  and 
coming  generations  will  comprehend 
them  better  than  we  do.  But  our  mem- 
ories of  the  former,  though  far  less  sali- 
ent, have  this  importance — that  they  will 


80  PERSONAL  IMPRESSIONS 

pass  away  with  us.  Every  hour  hence- 
forward makes  the  man  more  shadowy. 
We  must  condense  our  recollections,  if 
they  are  not  to  prove  wholly  volatile  and 
fugitive.  In  these  few  pages,  then,  I 
shall  mainly  strive  to  contribute  my 
pencil-sketch  to  the  gallery  of  portraits 
which  will  be  preserved.  He  was  so 
many-sided  that  there  may  be  room  for 
any  picture  of  him  that  is  quite  sincere 
and  personal,  however  slight  it  may 
prove  ;  and  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Brown- 
ing, far  more  than  of  most  men  of  ge- 
nius, the  portrait  may  be  truly  and 
boldly  drawn  without  offense.  There 
is  no  prominent  feature  of  character 
which  has  to  be  slurred  over,  no  trick 
or  foible  to  be  concealed.  No  man  ever 
showed  a  more  handsome  face  to  private 
friendship,  no  one  disappointed  or  re- 
pelled less,  no  one,  upon  intimate  ac- 
quaintance, required  less  to  be  apologized 
for  or  explained  away. 


PERSONAL  IMPRESSIONS  8 1 

There  have  been  many  attempts  to  de- 
scribe Mr.  Browning  as  a  talker  in  soci- 
ety. One  of  the  best,  from  the  pen  of 
an  accomplished  observer,  appeared  last 
autumn  in  the  JV^eio  Remew.  But  his 
private  conversation  was  a  very  different 
thing  from  his  talk  over  the  dinner-table 
or  in  a  picture-gallery.  It  was  a  very 
much  finer  phenomenon,  and  one  which 
tallied  far  better  with  the  noble  breadth 
of  his  genius.  To  a  single  listener,  with 
whom  he  was  on  familiar  terms,  the 
Browning  of  his  own  study  was  to  the 
Browning  of  a  dinner  party  as  a  tiger  is 
to  a  domestic  cat.  In  such  conversation 
his  natural  strength  came  out.  His  talk 
assumed  the  volume  and  the  tumult  of  a 
cascade.  His  voice  rose  to  a  shout,  sank 
to  a  whisper,  ran  up  and  down  the  gamut 
of  conversational  melody.  Those  whom 
he  was  expecting  will  never  forget  his 
welcome,   the   loud   trumpet-note   from 


82  PERSONAL  IMPRESSIONS 

the  other  end  of  the  passage,  the  talk 
already  in  full  flood  at  a  distance  of 
twenty  feet.  Then,  in  his  own  study  or 
drawing-room,  what  he  loved  was  to 
capture  the  visitor  in  a  low  armchair's 
"  sofa-lap  of  leather,"  and  from  a  most 
unfair  vantage  of  height  to  tyrannize, 
to  walk  around  the  victim,  in  front,  be- 
hind, on  this  side,  on  that,  weaving 
magic  circles,  now  with  gesticulating 
arms  thrown  high,  now  grovelling  on 
the  floor  to  find  some  reference  in  a 
folio,  talking  all  the  while,  a  redundant 
turmoil  of  thoughts,  fancies,  and  remi- 
niscences flowing  from  those  generous 
lips.  To  think  of  it  is  to  conjure  up  an 
image  of  intellectual  vigor,  armed  at 
every  point,  but  overflowing,  none  the 
less,  with  the  geniality  of  strength. 

The  last  time  that  the  present  writer 
enjoyed  one  of  these  never-to-be-for- 
gotten talks  was  on  the  earliest  Sunday 


PERSONAL  IMPRESSIONS  83 

in  June  last  summer.  For  the  first 
time  since  many  years  Mr.  Browning 
was  in  Cambridge,  and  he  was  much 
feted.  He  proposed  a  temporary  re- 
treat from  too  full  society,  and  we 
retired  alone  to  the  most  central  and 
sequestered  part  of  the  beautiful  Fel- 
lows' Garden  of  Trinity.  A  little  tired 
and  silent  at  first,  he  was  no  sooner 
well  ensconced  under  the  shadow  of 
a  tree,  in  a  garden-chair,  than  his 
tongue  became  unloosed.  The  blue  sky 
was  cloudless  above,  summer  foliage 
hemmed  us  round  in  a  green  mist,  a  pink 
mountain  of  a  double-may  in  blossom 
rose  in  front.  We  were  close  to  a  hot 
shrub  of  sweetbriar  that  exhaled  its 
balm  in  the  sunshine.  Commonly  given 
to  much  gesticulation,  the  poet  sat  quite 
still  on  this  occasion ;  and,  the  perfect 
quiet  being  only  broken  by  his  voice, 
the  birds  lost  fear  and  came  closer  and 


84  PERSONAL  IMPRESSIONS 

closer,  curiously  peeping.  So  we  sat 
for  more  than  two  hours,  and  I  could 
but  note  what  I  had  had  opportunity  to 
note  before,  that  although,  on  occasion, 
he  could  be  so  accurate  an  observer  of 
nature,  it  was  not  instinctive  with  him 
to  observe.  In  the  blaze  of  summer, 
with  all  the  life  of  birds  and  insects 
moving  around  us,  he  did  not  borrow 
an  image  from  or  direct  an  allusion  to 
any  natural  fact  about  us. 

He  sat  and  talked  of  his  own  early 
life  and  aspirations  ;  how  he  marvelled, 
as  he  looked  back,  at  the  audacious  ob- 
stinacy which  had  made  him,  when  a 
youth,  determine  to  be  a  poet  and  noth- 
ing but  a  poet.  He  remarked  that  all 
his  life  long  he  had  never  known  what 
it  was  to  have  to  do  a  certain  thing 
to-day  and  not  to-morrow ;  he  thought 
this  had  led  to  superabundance  of  pro- 
duction, since,  on  looking  back,  he  could 


PERSONAL  IMPRESSIONS  85 

see  that  he  had  often,  in  his  unfettered 
leisure,  been  afraid  to  do  nothing. 
Then,  with  complete  frankness,  he  de- 
scribed the  long-drawn  desolateness  of 
his  early  and  middle  life  as  a  literary 
man ;  how,  after  certain  spirits  had 
seemed  to  rejoice  in  his  first  sprightly 
runnings,  and  especially  in  Paracelsus^ 
a  blight  had  fallen  upon  his  very  ad- 
mirers. He  touched,  with  a  slight  irony, 
on  "  the  entirely  unintelligible  Sor- 
dello^''  and  the  forlorn  hope  of  Bells 
and  Pomegranates.  Then  he  fell, 
more  in  the  habitual  manner  of  old 
men,  to  stories  of  early  loves  and 
hatreds,  Italian  memories  of  the  forties, 
stories  with  names  in  them  that  meant 
nothing  to  his  ignorant  listener.  And, 
in  the  midst  of  these  reminiscences,  a 
chord  of  extreme  interest  to  the  critic 
was  touched.  For  in  recounting  a  story 
of   some   Tuscan    nobleman   who    had 


86  PERSONAL  IMPRESSIONS 

shown  him  two  exquisite  miniature- 
paintings,  the  work  of  a  young  artist 
who  should  have  received  for  them  the 
prize  in  some  local  contest,  and  who, 
being  unjustly  defrauded,  broke  his 
ivories,  burned  his  brushes,  and  indig- 
nantly forswore  the  thankless  art  for 
ever,  Mr.  Browning  suddenly  reflected 
that  there  was,  as  he  said,  "  stuff  for  a 
poem  "  in  that  story,  and  immediately 
with  extreme  vivacity  began  to  sketch 
the  form  it  should  take,  the  suppression 
of  what  features  and  the  substitution  of 
what  others  were  needful ;  and  finally 
suggested  the  non-obvious  or  inverted 
moral  of  the  whole,  in  which  the  act  of 
spirited  defiance  was  shown  to  be,  really, 
an  act  of  tame  renunciation,  the  pov- 
erty of  the  artist's  spirit  being  proved 
in  his  eagerness  to  snatch,  even  though 
it  was  by  honest  merit,  a  benefit  simply 
material.     The  poet  said,  distinctly,  that 


PERSONAL  IMPRESSIONS  8/ 

he  had  never  before  reflected  on  this  in- 
cident as  one  proper  to  be  versified  ;  the 
speed,  therefore,  with  which  the  creative 
architect  laid  the  foundations,  built  the 
main  fabric,  and  even  put  on  the  domes 
and  pinnacles  of  his  poem  was,  no  doubt, 
of  uncommon  interest.  He  left  it,  in 
five  minutes,  needing  nothing  but  the 
mere  outward  crust  of  the  versification. 
It  will  be  a  matter  of  some  curiosity  to 
see  whether  the  poem  so  started  and 
sketched  was  actually  brought  to  com- 
pletion. 

It  cannot  have  escaped  the  notice  of 
any  one  who  knew  Robert  Browning 
well,  and  who  compares  him  in  thought 
with  other  men  of  genius  whom  he  may 
have  known,  that  it  was  not  his  strength 
only,  his  vehement  and  ever-eruptive 
force,  that  distinguished  him,  but  to  an 
almost  equal  extent  his  humanity.  Of 
all   great   poets,   except    (one  fancies) 


88  PERSONAL  IMPEESSIONS 

Chaucer,  he  must  have  been  the  most 
accessible.  It  is  almost  a  necessity  with 
imaginative  genius  of  a  very  high  order 
to  require  support  from  without :  sym- 
pathy, admiration,  amusement,  must  be 
constantly  poured  in  to  balance  the  cre- 
ative evaporation.  But  Mr.  Browning 
demanded  no  such  tribute.  He  rather 
hastened  forward  with  both  hands  full 
of  entertainment  for  the  new-comer, 
anxious  to  please  rather  than  hoping  to 
be  pleased.  The  most  part  of  men  of 
genius  look  upon  an  unknown  comer  as 
certainly  a  bore  and  probably  an  enemy, 
but  to  Robert  Browning  the  whole  world 
was  full  of  vague  possibilities  of  friend- 
ship. No  one  resented  more  keenly  an 
unpleasant  specimen  of  humanity,  no 
one  could  snub  more  royally  at  need,  no 
one  was  —  certain  premises  being  es- 
tablished —  more  ruthless  in  adminis- 
tering the  coup  de  grace  ;  but  then  his 


PERSONAL   IMPRESSIONS  89 

surprise  gave  weight  to  his  indignation. 
He  had  assumed  a  new  acquaintance  to 
be  a  good  fellow,  and  behold !  against 
all  ordinary  experience,  he  had  turned 
out  to  be  a  bore  or  a  sneak.  Sudden, 
irreparable  chastisement  must  fall  on 
one  who  had  proved  the  poet's  optimism 
to  be  at  fault.  And,  to  those  who 
shared  a  nearer  intimacy  than  genial 
acquaintanceship  could  offer,  is  there 
one  left  to-day  who  was  disappointed  in 
his  Browning  or  had  any  deep  fault  to 
find  with  him  as  a  friend  ?  Surely,  no  ! 
He  was  human  to  the  core,  red  with  the 
warm  blood  to  the  centre  of  his  being  ; 
and  if  he  erred,  as  he  occasionally  did  — 
as  lately,  to  the  sorrow  of  all  who  knew 
him,  he  did  err  —  it  was  the  judgment 
not  the  instinct  that  was  amiss.  He 
was  a  poet,  after  all,  and  not  a  j)hiloso- 
pher. 

It  was  part  of  Mr.  Browning's  large 


go  PERSONAL  IMPRESSIONS 

optimism,  of  Ms  splendid  and  self-suffi- 
cing physical  temperament,  that  he  took 
his  acquaintances  easily  —  it  might  al- 
most be  said  superficially.  His  poetic 
creations  crowded  out  the  real  world  to 
a  serious  extent.  With  regard  to  living 
men  and  women  he  was  content  to  spec- 
ulate, but  with  the  children  of  his  brain 
the  case  was  different.  These  were  not 
the  subjects  of  more  or  less  indolent 
conjecture,  but  of  absolute  knowledge. 
It  must  be  ten  years  ago,  but  the  im- 
pression of  the  incident  is  as  fresh  upon 
me  as  though  it  happened  yesterday, 
that  Mr.  Browning  passed  from  languid 
and  rather  ineffectual  discussion  of 
some  persons  well  known  to  us  both 
into  vivid  and  passionate  apology  for  an 
act  of  his  own  Colombe  of  Ravenstein. 
It  was  the  flash  from  conventionality  to 
truth,  from  talk  about  people  whom  he 
hardly  seemed  to  see  to  a  record  of  a 
soul  that  he  had  formed  and  could  f ol- 


PERSONAL  IMPRESSIONS  9 1 

low  through  all  the  mazes  of  caprice. 
It  was  seldom,  even  in  intimacy,  I 
think,  that  he  would  talk  thus  liberally 
about  his  sons  and  daughters  of  the 
pen,  but  that  was  mainly  from  a  sen- 
sible reticence  and  hatred  of  common 
vanity.  But  when  he  could  be  induced 
to  discuss  his  creations,  it  was  easy  to 
see  how  vividly  the  whole  throng  of 
them  was  moving  in  the  hollow  of  his 
mind.  It  is  doubtful  whether  he  ever 
totally  forgot  any  one  of  the  vast  assem- 
blage of  his  characters. 

In  this  close  of  our  troubled  century, 
when  to  so  many  of  the  finest  spirits  of 
Europe,  in  the  words  of  Sully  Prud- 
homme,  "  Toute  la  vie  ardente  et  triste 
Semble  aneantie  alentour,"  the  robust 
health  of  Robert  Browning's  mind  and 
body  has  presented  a  singular  and  a 
most  encouraging  phenomenon.  He 
missed  the  morbid  over-refinement  of 
the  age ;  the  processes  of  his  mind  were 


92  PERSONAL   IMPRESSIONS 

sometimes  even  a  little  coarse,  and  al- 
ways delightfully  direct.  For  real  del- 
icacy he  had  full  appreciation,  but  he 
was  brutally  scornful  of  all  exquisite 
morbidness.  The  vibration  of  his  loud 
voice,  his  hard  fist  upon  the  table,  would 
make  very  short  work  with  cobwebs. 
But  this  external  roughness,  like  the 
rind  of  a  fruit,  merely  served  to  keep 
the  inner  sensibilities  young  and  fresh. 
None  of  his  instincts  grew  old.  Long 
as  he  lived,  he  did  not  live  long  enough 
for  one  of  his  ideals  to  vanish,  for  one 
of  his  enthusiasms  to  lose  its  heat ;  to 
the  last,  as  he  so  truly  said,  he  "  never 
doubted  clouds  would  break.  Never 
dreamed,  though  right  were  worsted, 
wrong  would  triumph."  The  subtlest 
of  writers,  he  was  the  simplest  of  men, 
and  he  learned  in  serenity  what  he 
taught  in  song. 
December  20,  1889. 


EPILOGUE 


EPILOGUE. 

There  are  some  verses  by  Eonsard, 
which  Robert  Browning  loved,  and 
which  I  have  heard  him  repeat  with  en- 
thusiasm. May  I  quote  them  here,  in 
the  quaint  old  spelling,  and  throw  them, 
like  a  posy  of  violets,  on  the  marble  of 
his  tomb  ? 

"  Que  tu  es  renomm^e 
D'estre  tombeau  nomm^e 
D'un  de  qui  I'univers 
Chante  les  vers, 

"  Et  qui  oncque  en  sa  vie 
Ne  fut  brul^  d'envie, 
Mendiant  les  honneurs 

Des  grands  seigueurs, 

"  Ny  n'enseigna  I'usage 
De  I'amoreux  breuvage, 


96  EPILOGUE 

Ny  I'art  des  anciens 
Magiciens, 


* '  Mais  bien  a  nos  canipagnes 
Fit  voir  les  Sceurs  compagnes 
Foulautes  I'herbe  aiix  sons 
De  ses  chansons, 

"Car  il  fit  a  sa  lyre 
Si  bons  accords  eslire 
Qu'  il  orna  de  ses  chants 

Nous  et  nos  champs  I  " 


UNIVERSITY  r>"  ,-•■-— rp\TlX 


WORKS   OF 

ROBERT   BROWNING. 


Poetical  and  Dramatic  Works.  New 
Riverside  Edition.  With  Text  from  the 
latest  English  Edition,  revised  by  Mr. 
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6.  The  Agamemnon  of  /Eschylus,  etc. 

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This  New  Edition  includes  the  very  latest 
revisions  by  Mr.  Browning,  which  were  made 
for  the  recent  English  Edition.  The  changes 
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Parleyings  with  Certain  People  of  Im- 
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WORKS   OF 

ROBERT   BROWNING. 


Poetical  and  Dramatic  Works.  New 
Riverside  Edition.  With  Text  from  the 
latest  English  Edition,  revised  by  Mr. 
Browning.  With  Portrait  and  Indexes. 
7  vols.,  crown  8vo,  gilt  top,  each  $1.75  (ex- 
cept vol.  7,  which  is  $1.25);  the  set,  $11.25; 
half  calf,  $20.00;  half  calf,  gilt  top,  $21.00; 
half  levant,  $27.00. 

1.  Pauline,  etc. 

2.  Dramatic  Lyrics,  etc. 

3.  The  Ring  and  the  Book. 

4.  Christmas  Eve  and  Easter  Day,  etc. 

5.  Red  Cotton  Night-Cap  Country,  etc. 

6.  The  Agamemnon  of  i^schylus,  etc. 

7.  Asolando. 

This  New  Edition  includes  the  very  latest 
revisions  by  Mr.  Browning,  which  were  made 
for  the  recent  English  Edition.  The  changes 
in  Pauline  are  so  numerous  that  the  pre- 
vious version  is  given  in  an  appendix. 

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Lyrics,  Idyls,  and  Romances.  Selected 
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Favorite  Poems.  Together  with  Mrs. 
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Edition,  40  cents,  net. 

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/  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

-,  -^t    1  Santa  Barbara  College  Library 

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(j.  Return  to  desk  from  which  borrowed. 

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